EfD’s very own Collaborative Programs: WinEED and SETI co-organized the virtual workshop “Energy access through a gender lens” to work at the nexus of energy poverty and gender.
The Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative (SETI) and the Women in Environmental Economics for Development (WinEED) Initiative (under the Environment for Development (EfD) Network), and Duke Energy Access Project, successfully hosted their joint workshop on the intersection of energy access and gender.
The joint WinEED-SETI workshop leveraged and build on existing work and discussion among SETI affiliates working at the nexus of energy poverty and gender, while also highlighting that the gendered and intrahousehold impacts of interventions remain a major gap in quantitative, peer-reviewed social science energy literature (Jeuland et al. 2019).
The organizers aimed to build capacity for cutting-edge gender research on energy access and energy poverty in LMICs, to better deliver on both SDG5 (gender equality and empowerment of women and girls) and SDG7 (access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all).
The workshop accomplished the following goals:
- Identify the right questions: Engage with practitioners and organizations operating at different levels in the energy access domain to inform the creation of a research agenda that is grounded in real needs for evidence on questions of high relevance for improved energy poverty programming and policymaking.
- Engage with existing frameworks, methods, and findings: Hear from experts working on theoretical and methodological aspects in other domains where gender has been studied over a long period of time (e.g., in the context of health and nutrition interventions, vulnerability to gender-based violence, effectiveness of cash transfer programs, etc.). Present a white paper developed in preparation for this workshop on findings from the gender-energy literature.
- Improve approaches to studying gender in the energy access context: Quantitative research on gender often relies on simplifications and short-cuts that are problematic for both interpretation of results and for seeking solutions (for example, interpreting the effects of dummy variables that control for gender of household head in models).
- Ideate: Brainstorm and develop a set of research ideas and takeaways – for incorporation into a revised white paper and into new proposals – that responds to the issues raised by the practitioner and policy community and fills critical research gaps related to energy and gender.
The event took place on May 12 - 13, and was held fully online, for about 4-5 hours each day, convening nearly 200 researchers, policymakers, and practitioners from 35 countries and living in 10 different time zones.
The change from present to virtual workshop still allowed fruitful and dynamic discussions of the research and work happening at this intersection and ensure the safety and health of all participants.
For insights on the experience of this virtual workshop read the blog post: How to make virtual research-engagement workshops work better: Insights from a recent international gender and energy meeting
To access all the interesting discussions and presentations, visit the workshop session recordings in the following link: https://energyaccess.duke.edu/projects/virtual-workshop-energy-access-through-a-gender-lens/
For more information on the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative (SETI) and the Women in Environmental Economics for Development (WinEED) visit the following links:
https://efdinitiative.org/sustainable-energy-transitions-initiative-seti
https://efdinitiative.org/women-environmental-economics-development